


The Devil is a Handsome Man

by Nyx_Fedra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Dark Alina Starkov, Dark Arts, Dark Hermione Granger, Durmstrang Student Alina Starkov, Espionage, F/M, Infiltration, Ravenclaw Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyx_Fedra/pseuds/Nyx_Fedra
Summary: HP Crossover AUDraco and Aleksander are the leaders of a new Dark Arts organisation. Hermione and Alina are the Ministry Aurors tasked with taking them down by whatever means necessary.Their plan seems perfect until they realise that the pull to the dark is stronger, more seductive, that either of them could have ever imagined. Draco and Aleksander’s grey eyes shining like cold starts in the darkness, drawing them in, deeper and deeper.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> @galacticidiots on Twitter first pitched [this](https://twitter.com/galacticidiots/status/1354069660422074368) crossover but I have spent the last weeks falling deeper and deeper back into Dramione so instead of Ben and Rey I kept Draco and Hermione. I hope you will like it anyway.
> 
> All errors are mine because English is not my first language.

Draco first meets him in the summer of his fifth year.

Aleksander comes to the Manor as an old friend of his father from Durmstrang, yet he’s young, too young, he looks no older than twenty four, eyes as grey as Draco’s yet more ancient, more hungry. Draco has never known hunger, he has known plenty of anger though, he has been angry for as long as he can remember, watching his father mutter to himself how important the Malfoys used to be in the empty halls of the Manor after the Order defeated the Dark Lord and he’d been forced under house arrests for ten long years.

The son of the victors, Harry Potter, was the bane of Draco’s existence. Their rivalry at Hogwarts unmatched. He supposes Potter has the advantage of looks, as in: he looks like an idiot, like a _victim_ , with his stupid round glasses and messy hair, yet he is every bit the spoiled brat, his mischievousness fostered by Draco’s own blood-traitor cousin. But as his family had come out on top from the war, nothing Harry Potter did was ever too much, too mean, there was nothing that could not be excused whilst Draco was punished for the smallest infraction, the great house of Slytherin dragged thorough the mud.

Anger was what made him get up in the morning, what made him plot and conspire with Theodore and Blaise, to see if they could get away with hexing Weasley, closing Longbottom in some forgotten closet, anything, _anything_ to get back at them, to show that they could still bite, that there was still venom on their fangs. He’d almost been barred from taking his OWLs because McGonagall had called his ‘accidental’ collision with Potter while trying to catch the snitch during a Quidditch match ‘too suspicious’, the old senile man who called himself Headmaster practically a puppet in the Potters’ hands until _the_ mudblood, had interceded for him. As she was the apple of Professor McGonagall’s eyes, the old hag had let it go. But instead of being grateful, Draco had been angry, angry at her pity, angry at the whole circus that was the Wizading world, ruled by fools and incompetent idiots in the aftermath of the Dark Lord’s failed revolution.

Aleksander Morozova arrived at the Manor two weeks after Draco returned from Hogwarts, and he could feel the man’s eyes on him constantly, assessing, calculating. Lucius was too overwhelmed by someone visiting him that wasn’t the DMLE officer assigned to him to notice what was wrong with Aleksander’s eyes, what lurked behind them, and Narcissa had grown too accustomed to pretend reality didn’t exist to stop her son from orbiting closer and closer to the strange man who walked their halls, who had not aged a day since Lucius had first met him twenty years before.

It all ended in the library of the Manor. Draco found Aleksander there in the early morning, boringly looking over the books on dark magic that had not been confiscated by the Ministry when they gutted the Manor after the war ended. Draco didn’t even know how he could feel anger for _that_ as he’d been nothing more than a baby at the time. He couldn’t remember what was missing, yet he missed it anyway, the possibility of what could have been, his rightful inheritance, centuries of treasures carefully passed down for generations squandered in an instant, forever locked in a Ministry vault instead of being within his reach, where he could unlock their potential.

‘You are angry’ Aleksander says, moving towards him.

For a brief moment, as Aleksander’s hand moves on his neck, pushing his face closer, Draco thinks the man just wants a young body to indulge in, Merlin only knew he’d seen Slughorn and Gilderoy Lockheart abuse their position the same way plenty of times at Hogwarts. But there’s something else in Aleksander’s eyes, no Occlumency hiding his arrogance, his hunger. He had the composure and the mannerism of someone who knew he stood above others, Draco had behaved much the same way too once, but Hogwarts and Potter had forced him to bend more than he would have ever allowed himself to otherwise.

‘Are you hungry, Draco? Do you ever ask yourself, what could you do if they hadn’t shackled you since you were born?’

It’s involuntary, the way Draco feels his face twitch in anger, his jaw clench. It’s all the answer Aleksander needs.

'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ his words are cold, yet they light a fire inside Draco ‘I bet they repeat this every day while they taunt you, while they suppress you, don’t you want to show them, what it really means?’

Draco clenches his hands at his side, trying to control himself, the anger making him almost shake. As Aleksander steps back, his hand falling away from his neck, magic fills the air, something ancient and powerful that sweeps through the halls of the Manor, covering it with a cloud of darkness, a cloud of _power_.

‘I came here because I have been told you have raw, untamed power, and I am not a wasteful man. How can one just leave such potential to rot in chains?’

In the darkness that envelops the library, Aleksander’s eyes shine as bright and as coldly as stars. The fire inside Draco is catching, growing, and it’s exhilarating, to reach towards the darkness, to feel it as it answers to him, as it moves as he wishes.

In the darkness, Draco cannot see Aleksander’s smirk, but he can feel it in his words.

‘You and I are going to change the world’

* * *

‘It’s our fault’

That is the first thing Hermione tells Alina, her counterpart sent by the Russian Ministry to accompany her on what may well be a suicide mission.

Infiltrate the Second Army. Gather as much knowledge as possible on the Darkling and the Black Dragon, do whatever necessary to bring them down.

It’s essential for Hermione that Alina understands that, that nothing like this would have happened if Wizarding society hadn’t punished the children of those who had been on the wrong side of the war as harshly as their parents. Everyone knows the Black Dragon is Draco Malfoy, a name born of his desire to bring back to greatness both his mother and his father’s family. She remembers clearly the way he and and his friends were harshly punished and chastised at Hogwarts, how instead Harry, Ron and Neville, even Fred and George, were rarely given anything more than a slap on the wrist even after their cruelest pranks. As there is nothing that Hermione Granger appreciates more than a good system of rules, the way one weight and two measures had become the standard at Hogwarts had irritated her to no end. So she could understand where Malfoy anger came from, although she did not condone his actions.

Looking back now, she can clearly pinpoint the moment the Darkling came for Malfoy. It had been before their sixth year, because he’d come back from the summer holidays completely changed. Walking the corridors as if he owned them, smirking and ignoring Harry and his attempts to fight like he’d never done before, as if he knew something no else did, his magic growing and growing, and Hermione had been the only one who seemed to notice, who saw the way he shifted his focus from revenge to incessant research, eyeing the restricted section with growing hunger.

As always, he came out on top, his marks as good as Hermione’s, and the last she’d seen of him had been outside of the Potions classroom after their last NEWTs, his eyes on her assessing, calculating. For a second, she’d thought he would speak to her, but then his expression had gone cold and he’d disappeared, remerging months later on the other side of the world heading a new Dark Arts organisation and with a new name.

Alina didn’t seem convinced by her words, Hermione cold tell. She also looked sick, pale, scrawny, her hair a snow white, not Malfoy platinum.

‘He’s a monster’ Alina says, speaking of the Darkling, who’d razed an entire city to the ground in eastern Russia, threatening the Statue of Secrecy, forcing the Ministry and the international community’s hands. Hermione cannot deny that, their crimes, no matter how much sympathy Malfoy had once inspired.

The day Malfoy had called her a mudblood, the one and only time, it’s one of Hermione’s clearest memories. She had tried to put herself between him and Harry, to stop yet another one of their pointless fights during fourth year, and then he’d spoken those words, _’stay out of it, mudblood_ , almost dismissively, and Harry had raised his wand, a spell she had never heard before erupting from its tip, Malfoy suddenly on the ground, Nott and Zabini screaming, blood everywhere. No one had punished Harry, his parents had been called and his mother had looked displeased until his father dismissed the whole affair, they had tea with Dumbledore and disappeared while Hermione could still find traces of Malfoy’s blood under her fingernails, no matter how many times she had washed her hands. Malfoy, instead, had been punished, he was barred from participating in Quidditch matches for the rest of the year as Harry got pats on his shoulder for defending her against the slur.

It’s a complicated dynamic to explain to Alina, that of post war Britain. She knows only what she had seen in the papers, the heroic Order and the evil Death Eaters, a black and white story Hermione has never seen even in the most biased history book in muggle school. It was what had spurred her to join the Ministry, to foster change, before she was relegated into a dead end desk job only to then be tossed dangerously into the field, even if most days she didn’t know where she stood. Understanding both sides, hating both sides.

‘Do you know him?’ Alina asks after, as they settle in Hermione’s flat instead of the cold Ministry rooms, some warm food between them while they try to finalise the details of their infiltration. She points at the picture of Harry and Ron on the front page of the Prophet, and Hermione nods, trying not to scowl.

‘We were in school together. Different houses though, I was a Ravenclaw, they were in Gryffindor.’

‘I head you were friends’

Hermione flinches, as always.

‘Sort of’ she says in the end, omitting how she thinks they had just used her to get help with the homework they never seemed willing to do, the only class they were interested in the DADA one led by Professor Lupin from their third year onwards, Harry’s godfather’s boyfriend, or something like that. They’d promptly forgotten her once they were granted by the Ministry a fast track into the Auror program.

Something like understanding crosses Alina’s face.

‘I know what you mean’ she mutters, looking down.

It’s only later, two bottles of cheap wine in while Crookshaw purrs between them in front of her small fireplace that Alina talks about the orphanage, about Mal, how’d ignored her and then how he’d become mean when her her letter from Durmstrang arrived. It’s impossible for Hermione not to draw parallels with Ron, how he’d made fun of her love for studying and ignored her up until he needed her, how their relationship had promptly ended as she’d felt him caging her in more and more.

Alina and Mal were a different story. For starters, Mal was a muggle, she was a witch, and even if Hermione knew from the file the Ministry had provided, it was still surprising to hear her talk about how she’d met the Darkling, how he had tried to lure her into the Second Army before Baghra, the old Divination professor at Durmstrang, had told Alina to run away. She’d gone back to Mal, hiding her magic in fear, which unexpectedly backfired, making her so sick there had been no chance but to leave Mal and return to Wizarding society to see a healer, only to be immediately poached by the new Russian Minister of Magic, Nikolai Lanistov. She could get into the Second Army, tell the Darkling she had changed her mind about his offer and help them take him down from the inside. In exchange, Russian Magical Law would be bent in her favour, she could be with Mal and he would not be Obliviated, he would be allowed to know about magic. It was a story similar to Hermione, although there was no one she was doing it for. But she, too, had been chosen because of that one moment of hesitation that Draco Malfoy showed her before disappearing.

‘I wonder what they saw in us’ Hermione is thinking out loud, ignoring the blush on Alina’s cheeks, knowing there’s more to the story than what she revealed. She’d not angry, she’d be an hypocrite if she said she has never found Draco Malfoy handsome, because he’d always been, age only improving his features, his body. She doesn’t doubt the Darkling is easy on the eyes as well. The devil, after all, is always a handsome man.

Hermione tries to focus on the similarities between her and Alina, on how both of them had always been dismissed, pushed aside. They were muggleborn, they seemingly had no place in this story of ancient rivalries and grudges and wars, but that didn’t make them less important, less powerful. They had become the hope of the Wizarding world anyway.

 _Them_.

And ironically, the dark wizards they were supposed to help take down had been the first to see that there was nothing common in their abilities, in their magic. Draco Malfoy had never offered her power as explicitly as the Darkling had Alina, but he’d always looked at her as if she was his equal, even if he’d called her mudblood, his eyes on her every time she spoke in class, his smirk as she won points and points for Ravenclaw something she could never quite pretend to ignore.

‘We’ll be alright’ Alina says, her pale hand cold when she reaches for Hermione’s.

She wasn’t so sure about that, but what could she do but hope?

* * *

The Second Army razes to the ground an isolated village in Romania and the British Ministry dispatches Hermione and Alina there immediately, it’s their opening. The knowledge that the villagers had fervently taken part in the tradition of killing all children that showed magical abilities does not help Alina at all when they see what it’s left of it, just smoke and ruins. If she focus enough she can see all that’s left of the villagers, just blackened bones, it makes her shiver, it makes her want to vomit.

Hermione is much stronger than Alina is, she links their arms together and forces her to move forward, through the thick smoke that makes their eyes water, through the smell of burning flesh. The British witch is stubborn, a stubbornness Alina has perhaps lost in her fight for and against Mal, in the whiplash created by hiding her powers so much she has almost lost them, only to then be filled by it, by power, responsibilities, as Nikolai hailed her as a hero throwing her in the middle of his political machinations.

The memory of the Darkling cornering her in one of Durmstrang cold corridors is burned in her mind, impossible to forget, just like his kiss, his mouth on her, his hands all over her body, hungry, _warm_. It was shameful, how much she thought about it, about his whispers of power, his promises, and Alina has never quite found the courage to tell anyone what really happened, although she is sure Hermione is the first one to get close to the truth. Despite how confusing her feelings for the Darkling are, she is committed to taking him down by whatever means necessary. He is a monster, he disfigured Genya after she run away, and she would not let Mal be Obliviated, she didn’t want him to forget about her forever, no matter how mean he’d been, how much he had shamed her for her powers, for falling into the Darkling’s trap.

‘He just wants servants like that old British wizard you always read about in the papers’ Mal had said, nostrils flaring, the implication being: she had almost allowed herself to become his whore. His words still stung, the shame they had awaken in her just prompting her forward, making her even more resolute to take the Darkling down, as if she could erase what had happened, as if she could go back to the lie of what her life was before the letter from Durmstrang arrived, before the secrets that were her powers could not longer be kept.

Hermione suddenly stops, and Alina almost bumps into her. She can see more and more people around them, and they clearly belong to the Second Army. Their robes are all of different colours, but always the same four: red, blue, green, yellow. It was obvious by the way they looked at them, by the way she and Hermione were allowed to move freely among the rubbles that they knew they were here, that the Darkling and the Black Dragon were indulging them and their recklessness.

Their steps become more careful until Hermione stops again as a young man Alina has seen in one of the pictures provided by Ministry walks towards them: deep dark blue robes, black eyes, curvy bronze hair perfectly styled in place and olive skin. Theodore Nott.

‘This way, please’ he says with a small smile and a little bow as he stands in front of them.

Alina glances at Hermione, and when the witch nods, they follow him. In the mist of the destruction, among the wizards and witches in their colourful robes, only two are wearing black.

Their coats are similar in cut, long and gently moved by the wind the bends the smoke that comes from the rubbles. They are distinguished only by the skilful embroidery that adorns them, one gold and one silver. Gold for the Darkling, silver for the Black Dragon.

They stand on the ruins of what once was the small town-hall, wand in hands, surveying the results of their ruthless campaign. It is surprising to Alina to discover that they are both devastatingly beautiful, even despite the destruction that surrounds them. The Darkling is exactly as Alina remembers him, deep eyes and perfectly coiffed black hair, the smile she had known turned into a smirk. The Black Dragon seems to have the same build, same height, shoulders a little bit broader, but sharper features, platinum blond hair and lashes to frame his grey eyes. They turn towards them as they approach and Alina tires to not shiver under their gaze, focusing on Hermione’s warm presence right next to her.

There’s no need for Theodore to introduce them, he just moves aside as the Darkling allows himself a small smile and walks to them, hands behind his back. The Black Dragon seems more careful, his eyes moving on her and Hermione without any rush. Neither of them is surprised to see them, but they had not expected otherwise.

’Well, this is unexpected’ the Darkling says, half a lie and half a truth, turning towards the Black Dragon and raising and eyebrow at him as the blond man finally steps forward as well, moving towards them. ‘This is the girl you spoke of, Draco?’

Next to her, Alina can feel Hermione tense, and she does her best to remain calm, not to think of the past, not even of their plan, of what she might have to do.

‘Yes’ the Darkling’s voice is smooth, deep, but the Black Dragon’s is deeper, yet somewhat younger, angrier, even if his tone is neutral.

‘Why, she’s every bit a marvel as you described her. Why didn’t you try to convince her?’ the Darkling asks, and Alina tries her hardest to stop the memories from flooding back to the forefront of her mind, to stop herself from blushing in front of their enemies. She does not want him to win, she doesn’t want to give him not even such an insignificant, small victory.

‘I wanted to be cautious, after your mishap’ he says, eyes darting to Alina, who sucks in a breath ‘and Hermione Granger famously loves to follow rules to the letter, I doubted she would have come willingly’

‘Obviously we were both mistaken’ concedes the Darkling, hands still behind his back as he moves forward until he’s but inches away from Hermione, his eyes carefully moving over her like they’d done once for Alina.

‘Yes, I can feel it, they’re powerful, more powerful than even they know’ he adds before he finally moves to stand in from of her, his smile wicked and yet every inch as beautiful as she remembers, ‘I knew you would see reason, Alina’

‘Did you come together?’ asks the Black Dragon, and Alina tries not to show the panic as his eyes once again carefully take her in.

‘No, I met her on my way here, we decided to continue together as we had a common destination’ Hermione’s reply is flawless, but the Black Dragon doesn’t seem satisfied.

‘How fortunate’ the Darkling hums.

‘What made Hermione Granger come to the Second Army?’ the Black Dragon is advancing again, and as his eyes fix on Hermione, Alina can see they are different from the Darkling’s own quartz grey, they look almost like molten silver under the cold winter light.

‘The Ministry is in shambles, and sometimes, some things cannot be reformed, you must burn them to the ground and raise them anew, on steadier foundations’ Hermione’s eloquence and intellect is something Alina admires even more as her answers captures both the Black Dragon and the Darkling’s attention. In the look they exchange, an entire conversations passes by that she and Hermione are not privy of.

Another man with dark skin in a deep red coat is now standing next to Theodore Nott, he should be Blaise Zabini, if Alina is not mistaken. It makes her feel surrounded, more aware than ever of the fact that they willingly entered the serpents’ nest.

‘You were right, about my powers’ Alina finally speaks, forcing the words out, and the Darkling’s eyes on her burn with satisfaction.

‘You have no idea how pleased I am to hear that’ he says with a smirk.

Alina moves her hand until she can hold Hermione’s, the action not escaping the notice of the two men who keep smirking as if they have just gotten their hands on the most precious and powerful of ancient artefacts.

‘We don’t fight a war in half measures’ the Black Dragon says, and the Darkling laughs before he speaks.

‘Not anymore’


	2. Two

Aleksander knows how to be patient.

For decades he waited in the shadows, watched as lesser wizards tried to claim greatness only to fail spectacularly. Grindelwald, Voldemort, all fools who looked for the wrong things, who misunderstood magic not only fundamentally but also profoundly. He watches over his Second Army as the sun rises over their new military encampment, the memory of Alina’s body pressed against his during apparition still burning under his hands.

The hate for the pull he feels towards her has gradually dissolved during the two years they spent apart, leaving in its place only a mild irritation at her lack of vision, at the way the pathetic Oristev boy had bent her spirit and her perception of herself. The magic moving inside her was ancient, more powerful than anything he’d ever felt in anyone else, and it called to him. At first, he’d thought he could take it for himself, what use was to him such an unambitious girl? But how wrong he’d been. He could not take what she would not willingly give, and now he wanted all of her. So he allowed her to go back to the pathetic muggle boy while he waited patiently for her inevitable return. Of course she’d come back, the alternative would have been giving up her magic, a part of herself, for a boy who hated her power and wanted only the parts of her that didn’t interfere with his fragile ego.

Aleksander let out an irritated sigh. He should have killed that pathetic boy. How dare he, powerless and with a too much conflated ego, try and convince Alina that severing a part of herself was the only way for her to be _good_ and _just_? And she fell for it, because she thought he cared for her when he only cared about himself, hating everything he didn’t understand, including the magic in Alina’s blood.

Draco approaching was enough to distract him, allowing the rage he felt towards Oristev to be somewhat more manageable, to find calm and composure once again. She was here now, and he supposed he should show some scraps of clemency to the Lanistov boy for having sent Alina his way.

‘Sasha’ Draco greets him.

He and Alina are the only two people to know his real name, and Draco is the only one he has ever allowed to used a that nickname. Draco’s presence is something he has become reliant upon without even noticing, the young man surpassing every expectation, his anger, his fire, balancing Aleksander’s silences more perfectly than he could have ever imagined, and he’d become fond of him without even noticing.

Aleksander had thought he’d finally found his equal in Draco, but it turned out there was four of them, if only they could make the two young witches see reason. Hermione Granger is another unexpected discovery, she would have been their most formidable adversary, someone to truly worry about because of her extensive knowledge, if it wasn’t for the pull she clearly feels towards Draco, similar to one he feels towards Alina.

‘How are they settling in?’ he asks, and Draco’s grey eyes turn towards the rising sun, the light bathing the encampment in soft pastel colours.

He’s still young, Aleksander reminds himself, so he doesn’t know himself well yet, and Draco, despite his upbringing, despite his actions in the last years, still cannot clearly state what he wants. It hinders his capacity to think about how to get it, his capacity to wait and bend the flow of events until they turn the way he wishes to.

Aleksander has been able to teach him much, he’s an apt pupil, but Hermione Granger being so close to him once more will force him to learn how to move to get what he wants, how to protect it, in a way Aleksander never could. Even despite his age, Aleksander himself has learned much from Alina, she has tested his patience more times that he cares to count.

‘They’re friends’ is all Draco says.

‘You’re irritated’ Aleksander states, and Draco shakes his head, platinum hair shining in the morning light.

‘They’re not here for us, not that way’

‘ _Ah_ ’ it’s all Aleksander says, a small smirk on his lips ‘then this is an opportunity to change their minds. Regardless of how it came to be, they are with us now’

‘I’ve sent Pansy and Zoya to help them settle’ Draco tries not to sigh, as always, tries to hide his emotions even with him, even if there is no real reason to. Aleksander has not trusted anyone in decades, in a century, perhaps, but he trusts Draco, although he is pleased Draco has not been so reckless as to lower his defences after some years together.

‘They’re not our weakness, Draco’ he says turning his eyes back on the encampment, the sun slowly climbing higher in the sky.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘You’ll see’ he says with a smirk, irritation now plain on Draco’s face.

‘I’ll check the wards and the reports with Theo and Blaise’ Draco says before leaving.

Aleksander watches him go with a chuckle. He knows very well the internal struggle Draco is experiencing: want and sentiments can be a weakness, a deadly one. Everything has to be practiced in moderation, and especially during a revolution, a war, everything needs to be carefully weighted and evaluated. Yet he’s sure Alina and Hermione are not their weakness, if they manage to keep them close, to make them see reason, they will make them more powerful than anyone could ever imagine.

Between the two of them, Draco will have it easier. From what he’s been told, Miss Granger’s interest in magical creatures and her experience as a muggle-born have already showed her the injustices of the wizarding world. Alina is different, much more selfish in a way, attached irrationally to a boy who would always resent and hate a part of her until he could carve it out in an act of violence greater than any Aleksander himself had ever performed. To carve magic out of a witch, to force her to suppress her magic so much… only thinking about it made him burn with murderous rage.

He could send a hunting party to kill Oristev, he’s sure he can even convince Lanistov to kill him for him for the right deal, but it would be much more satisfying to watch Alina reject him herself. He had time now, to show her his vision, his true vision, not the distorted version of it she had glimpsed before through his lies, through the news reports. He would show her the truth and he would convince her.

Aleksander walks the camp watching as his soldiers go through their drills and routines until he reaches Alina’s tent, next to Hermione’s and in front of his and Draco’s. He walks inside without even bothering to announce his presence, and he finds her sitting in front of the small vanity, her white hair braided around her head in a crown, Zoya’s work. She’s inspecting a lock of hair that escaped the hairstyle, studying its colour, the side effect of her attempt at making Oristev happy, suppressed magic backfiring in unexpected ways inside her body.

She was still beautiful. Glowing, in a way, now that magic moved freely inside her, now that she accepted it.

‘How was your time with your precious tracker? Bliss, I suppose, after so much time apart’ he has to mock her a little so that she can see the truth of what has been done to her, what she has almost lost.

So stubborn, his Alina.

‘It was’ there’s anger in her words, but he can see her troubling throughs roll in as she processes his words, her brow furrowing in a concerned expression.

 _Definitely_ not bliss, then.

‘Then why did you leave?’ he phrases the question innocently, as if he truly believes it odd that she would leave her lover as he sits on an armchair on her left.

Aleksander lets the silence stretch between them and takes his time to study her, her body, her expressions, the magic moving around her. She’s thinner than when she was at Durmstrang, probably another side effect of suppressing her magic.

‘I…’ Alina hesitates as she tries to answers, tries to spar with him, but he knows she cannot win this debate, not even with herself.

‘I was told he practically slept with anyone who was willing _before_ and _after_ you left’ he adds, just to remind her that maybe yes, he was the monster in her story, but her dear Oristev was no prince. The real prince, Lanistov… Aleksander would have understood, he was ambitious and smart, instead she’d fallen for the most pathetic one she could find.

’Stop’ she hisses, finally turning towards him, and Aleksander cannot help himself, he smirks at her.

‘Why? I don’t believe that it’s a loss for you. Selfish men like him rarely know how to pleasure their partners. You see, Alina, to give pleasure, one must see the other as equal. He was always _so_ irritated by your powers…’

‘That’s enough!’ she exclaims standing up, hands fisted at her sides and magic crackling in the air around them.

Her power is a marvel to watch. He cannot wait to teach her more, to share with her his knowledge and be at her side as she grows, as she learns to control it. It had been an extremely satisfying process with Draco, but it will be even more with her.

They’re a convergence, Alina and Hermione, him and Draco. As Alina and Hermione stand on one side of a coin, Aleksander and Draco stand as their opposites on the other side, inevitably drawn to each other, dark magic and light magic forever reaching and feeding off one another.

Slowly, Aleksander stands as well and takes the two steps he needs to be right in front of her. Alina is clearly irritated by the fact that she has to look up at him, but he doesn’t mean to tease, not this time.

‘You must see, Alina, what he has done to you. You wanted to make me your villain, and you did. Yet I’m not the one who forced you to repress a part of yourself so much it almost killed you’

‘You tried to take it as well!’ she snarls and her eyes are bright as she channels her anger towards him. It makes him sigh.

‘I barely knew you. The moment I started to know you, I saw _you_ , and I’ve never made a secret of my intention to have you at my side. I’ve seen your kindness as well as your rage, your compassion and your hunger for power, your curiosity for magic, and I’ve never faulted you for any of it, for the complexity of your character and your choices. I don’t think he can say the same. Oristev has known you since you were children, yet he never _saw_ you. If he’d only taken you from granted and then regretted it I could have forgiven him, in a way, for his shortsightedness. Yet, since he saw your magic, he has done everything in his power to make you feel bad and self conscious for it, as if you were a villain for daring to wish for a life for yourself over the boundaries he built for himself, without ever asking, without ever thinking about asking: _what do you want, Alina?_ Magic isn’t intrinsically evil, and you know he’s angry because he’s always been first until he wasn’t, until you stopped holding in for his sake and shined brightly’ there are tears in her eyes, and Aleksander is so close now he can feel her warmth on his skin even though they’re not touching. The words come tumbling out of his mouth, and he doesn’t even try to stop them. After two years, he wants her to know. He will leave no room for misunderstanding, he will show her exactly what they had done to her and then he would walk beside her as she took her revenge.

'If he loved you, if he _really_ loved you, he would want what’s best for you, he wouldn’t force you to kill such a fundamental part of yourself. And _don’t_ say magic isn’t who you are, it is, _it is_ , you believe it isn’t, that it’s corrupting you as he claims only because he forced you to reject it. If he loved you, he would love all of you, he wouldn’t try to pick and choose what about you is acceptable to him and his ego. I know you are here because of Lanistov and the Ministry, but you see, unlike him I don’t care. I’ll take what you give and I’ll take this as an opportunity to show you what I want to achieve, how much I want _all_ of you.’

He cannot help the way his gaze falls to her mouth, his hands just hoovering around her waist, itching to touch her, to press her against him and ravish her as she deserves. One step at the time, he reminds himself moving away.

It surprises him when her hand shoots out to stop him, fisting the lapel of his coat and pushing him close to her again. She’s shaking, and it’s hard to understand if this is her weak attempt at manipulation, at trying to convince him that she’s here of her own volition. He doubts he has managed to convince her about Oristev so quickly. Unless… unless the boy had behaved worst than he could have ever imagined.

There are tears on Alina’s cheeks, the hands the fists his coat shaking lightly as she turns something over in her head.

‘So you would never hold anything against me? That is hard to believe. You hate it when I don’t act the way you want, you’re always trying to punish me for it’

‘If you are referring to me trying to kill Oristev, I was trying to free you’ he smirks, trying to appreciate the moment, the crack he has created, even despite the _want_ for _more_ , ‘after our rocky beginning, I’ve never offered you anything less than an equal partnership. If you want, you can scream about my methods and plans all day, right in my face, and while maybe I would be irritated, I would also consider your point of view and your ideas on the matter, something _he_ has never done’

‘And what if _I_ want to get back at _you_? What if _I_ am angry?’

‘When are you _not_ angry, Alina? You hide it well, but not well enough to fool me’

For the first time in a century, Aleksander is surprised, truly surprised. He’s shocked as Alina rises on her tiptoes to press her mouth against his, and he cannot control himself, kissing her back and asking for more, his arms keeping her flush against him until she shoves him back. She’s breathing heavily, her cheeks red, anger in her eyes, a resolution he hadn’t seen since those first days at Durmstrang when he still planned to fool her, before he discovered how much _more_ , how utterly indescribable she was when _whole_ , shining like pure sunlight.

‘Maybe I am angry at Mal for sleeping around, for calling me your whore’ Alina says sitting back down on the chair in front of her vanity, and Aleksander feels rage rise inside him, that stupid boy, he was going to kill him…

‘But as you said you won’t mind even the worst parts of me, as you know how I came here… then you won’t mind me making things even’ Alina adds. She turns the chair towards him and looks at him expectantly, arching an eyebrow and leaving him confused for a moment about what she wants, what she’s trying to do.

‘You said to give pleasure one must see the other as an equal. Then get on your knees, Aleksander. Show me how much of an equal you consider me’ she tries to keep her voice firm, to make it sound like an order, but her voice is shaking lightly, and it’s endearing.

‘Very well’ he says with a smirk, kneeling and spreading her legs so that he can fit between them.

She’s clearly surprised by his compliance with her request, and it does something to him, to his old heart, to see how little she expects for herself.

‘I told you once, do you remember? That we were going to change the world’ he talks as his hands slide gently over her thighs and then on her waist, reaching the buttons of her trousers ‘I am not a kind man, I’ve never pretended to be. I know my power, I know it places me above others, and want it, I want to change this world. I did want to take your power as mine at the beginning’ he admits as she moves he hips up so that he can take her trousers down, exposing her legs inch by inch.

‘ _But_ … I was mesmerised by your power, by you as a _whole_ , and while a part of me still longs for it, for your power, another stronger one appreciated _you_ much more as you are, even when you defy me. Maybe _especially_ then’ he adds before kissing a trail from her thigh to her core, utterly delighted by the shocked expression on her face before her eyes fall shut as a moan escapes her lips.

‘Please don’t hesitate to tell me if you think I don’t consider you equal enough’ he smirks before going back to pleasure her, tasting her as he had wanted to do since before Baghra interfered, but she’d come to him anyway, in the end.

By the time she’s whimpering and pushing his face away, the seat of the chair is drenched, her voice hoarse from her moans, her legs still shaking as they rest over his shoulders. It unfurls a kind of pleasure inside him, seeing her so undone and sated because of him. It prompts him to gently pick her up in her arms before he settles her on the bead.

He wandlessly summons a pair of underwear for her to wear before tucking her in under the covers, her eyes studying him as she tries to stay awake.

‘It’s barely morning, I shouldn’t’ she protests, and Aleksander takes the opportunity to calm himself down, so that he won’t have to walk around the camp with a tent in his trousers. Not that it’s a secret, and if his soldier hand’t known, Alina had screamed loud enough for them to understand.

‘You have somewhere to be?’ he asks caressing her cheek, trying to memorise the detail of her face, this brief moment in which she doesn’t hate him, while she thinks of no one else but him.

He will win her over, slowly. But he will.

‘Is it always like this?’

Her question is nothing more than a whisper, and if she wasn’t already flushed thanks to his efforts, Aleksander know she would have turned scarlet once she uttered those words.

‘It is very pleasurable when done right. When one takes times to learn, when one wants to give the other pleasure’ he can barely get the words out and he can already see regret cloud her gaze. It makes him move away from her, and he forces himself to leave before anger makes him undo all the progress made today.

‘You feel guilty for feeling good because he called you a whore when you simply dared to entertain the idea of something different from what he wants. Think about that, Alina, and then come and find me when you’ve decided what to do. I would be happy to listen to your _critiques_ ’ he says before slipping out of her tent.

The sun is high in the sky, and Blaise and Theodore are chatting with Zoya outside of his tent. They don’t say anything as they watch him leave Alina’s tent and invites them inside his own to look over the plan for their next attack. It was almost time for them to change their strategy, to start attacking the Ministry more subtly.

‘Is it worth it?’ Zoya asks, finally voicing her skepticism, Draco’s absence clearly not going unnoticed as he had never missed such meetings since the Second Army had been founded.

‘They’re invaluable, you’ll see’ he says, but she just arches an eyebrow.

‘Granger is a powerhouse when she focuses on something’ Blaise says and Theodore smirks, nodding.

‘She seems… uncertain’ Zoya adds trying to remain neutral, and he knows she’s talking about Alina, not Hermione.

’Alina has been pushed to repress her magic for years, it will take some time for her to recover. Before they interfered, I’d almost convinced her. You always says my wards and protection spells are unbreakable, well, Alina is my opposite, she took down the entirety of Durmstrang’s one-thousand-years old wards in a matter of minutes’ at that, Zoya sucks in a breath while Blaise and Theodore exchanged a surprised look.

‘What about Draco?’ she asks, and Theodore laughs.

‘Granger is unbelievable at charms and transfiguration, Draco is amazing in ancient magic like runes and potions, they’re complementary, more than opposites’ Theodore exclaims with a smirk.

Aleksander finds himself smirking even if he doesn’t want to. Opposite and complementary, they would change everything.

‘Activate our spy within the Order, it’s time’ he orders, and Zoya nods before leaving with Blaise and Theodore.

* * *

It’s immediately clear to Hermione that, despite the warm welcome they have received, neither the Darkling nor Draco believed their sudden change of hearts. As they moved to the new encampment, she had tried to study the way the Second Army functioned, but so far she understood very little about it. The Darkling and Draco are not as tyrannical as the Ministry paints them to be, their rule is firm, the ranks enforced, but there’s no cruelty to keep the soldiers in line. Hermione has to admit that most of those who make up the Army have joined because they believe in the cause, which means they make a persuasive argument, the Darkling and Draco, one she still has to hear.

She’s dreading to be face to face with him again, because despite her voice never wavering at their first meeting, she could tell Draco was suspicious of them and it made her afraid. No one would come for her if something went wrong, the Ministry expected much and gave nothing in return but vague promises.

Before the thought can go further, she hears the flap of her tent move, and then Draco announces his arrival, his pureblood manners impeccable as he waits for her directions for where she would be more comfortable to talk to him. The tent they’d given her is big, bigger than the one she had shared with the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup before her fourth year. There is a bedroom, a small living space with all that she needs to brew tea, and a bathroom. The various ambients could be closed off with curtains, giving her even more privacy, the capacity to put on protective charms around her and stick them to the curtains.

‘Are you responsible for the books?’ she asks as she leads him to the small sofas that face each other in the living space. She's found a pile of old and rare transfiguration books on her nightstand and Hermione has been wondering about why they would give her such precious resources when they know she's not here to help them.

The sofas are covered in soft cushions, a warm blanket neatly folded and draped over a comfy armchair that looks perfect for reading. Everything is in a warm shade of blue, silver or black that reminds her of the common room in the Ravenclaw tower. The care is what surprises her the most, no one had ever gone so out of their way to create such a pleasant living space for her.

’I had them in my trunk and I thought you might enjoy them’ it’s all Draco says sitting down, but not before she does.

She takes her wand and casts the spell to brew tea, and the silence settles between them until the streaming cups of lady grey are in their hands. Because of course he even picked her favourite tea. Lady grey instead of earl grey, the more fruity flavour always a favourite of hers.

‘Where will meals be served?’ she asks before taking a sip. It’s very good, clearly expensive.

Goblins despise the Ministry, so it’s not a surprise to her that Draco has retained access to his family wealth.

‘We eat in the tent designated for mass with the rest of the soldiers, the same things too. Although I was able to make my case to Shasha that we don’t need to eat pickled herring every day. We do have some money, as you may have gathered by now’

It’s the nickname that catches her attention more than the confirmation about the money, the proof of how close the two men are.

Draco smirks behind his teacup before placing it back gently on its saucer. He’s the epitome of class, has always been, every movement effortlessly elegant while she has always been a bit more rough around the edges.

‘When he first spoke to me, I did think he just wanted to fuck me, I am young and good looking and you and I both have seen what Slughorn did, probably still does’ he says like it’s no big deal as Hermione blushes before grimacing at the mention of their old potions professor.

It had destroyed her respect for the entire teaching body at Hogwarts when, in her seventh year, she had clearly understood how Slughorn’s dinners ended for some students.

 _’He so well connected’_ Cho Chang had exclaimed when Hermione had asked for an explanation as to why she’d gone in the room next to the dining room alone with the professor, _’I can’t refuse. Cedric won’t mind, after seeing his father he knows how hard it is to get a decent job at the Ministry’_

Hermione had been hit by those words as if they were a _bombarda_. And it wasn’t just Slughorn, but Lockheart too.

 _’You just have to suck their cock, Hermione, it’s not hard. Just think of England or whatever’_ Cho had insisted, fixing her smudged make-up and her hair as Hermione watched her speechless.

‘Ah, is that why you stopped attending the club’s dinners?’ Draco asks studying her reaction, and she doesn’t know what to say, so he continues, ‘Yet here you are. Sent here to do what, exactly? If I told you to suck my cock now, would you do it? For the Ministry? They probably expect you to, they know what goes on at Hogwarts as well. I don’t think a single Ministry employee has been hired through a regular process in a decade’

Hermione’s mouth is suddenly dry, her face pale. She hadn’t… she’d known it was a possibility, but to have it thrown in her face, that everyone knew, that no one did anything, that girls and boys in their last year of school were thought to lower themselves in such a way if they wanted a chance at a decent job in the wizarding world. As she had refused Slughorn it was a miracle she had a job at all, and it had been mostly thanks to Harry and his parents.

‘British wizarding society is extremely sexist, in case you hadn’t noticed’ Draco says taking another sip of his tea, ‘but Shasha didn’t want my body, he wanted an ally, and as I travelled with him I learned much’

‘Like?’ she cannot hold her curiosity in check, and Draco just smiles before answering.

‘American wizarding society used to be much, much more stricter than ours for matters such as interactions with muggles. Muggleborn children were practically taken away from their parents and sent to Ilvermory until they reached majority, after which they were forbidden by law to interact with their parents. Yet, they changed, became more flexible, but only thanks to a group of rather stubborn witches and wizards who didn’t stop when they were called terrorists’

‘I thought you believed in blood purity’

‘I did’ he nods, looking down at the tea in his cup, ‘it was what I was thought to believe in. Yet, as you know well, nothing is more irritating than a theory being defined as perfect when there are too many holes in its core concepts. I was angry at the war, at my father, at what the Order did to my family, to the wizarding world, but… Shasha thought me more about magic than I could ever hope to learn in Hogwarts. It moves in us like conduct, some have more, some have less, but it has nothing to do with blood purity’

‘Yet you are both are purebloods’ she snaps.

‘And you and Alina are both muggleborns, what do you make of that?’

‘I don’t know’ she mutters, feeling cornered by his argument, trying not to look defeated.

‘I’m sure you know why. I’m not the only one who was irritated by the way the wizarding world works. For all their talk of protecting muggles and muggleborn, creatures and magical beings, what do they do if not make them into lesser citizens, severing their ties to their roots? Potter never even met his muggle aunt, yet Sirius Black so-called escape from our family was for equality and all of that. This is without even mentioning the way magical creatures are treated, of course. How many times did Weasley mock your house elves initiate?’

Hermione clenches her jaw. His argument makes sense, he… knows the problems of the wizarding world as much as she does, and she’s tempted to agree, if not for the fact that she knows she can never condone his methods.

‘So you’ll kill anyone that stands in your way?’

‘Is that what we are doing?’ he asks innocently, making her angry.

‘You’re the one razing villages to the ground!’ she almost shouts, and Draco leans back into the sofa, huffing out a laugh.

‘Oh, Granger. They lied to you. The villages are real, yes, but their inhabitants? They weren’t muggles. You think we’re so stupid we will break the Statue of Secrecy? We want a better world, but we’re not Voldemort and his Death Eaters’

‘If they weren’t villages in which Muggle lived, then they were wizarding…’

‘No’ his reply is hard, sharp, and he’s not lying ‘the villages were emptied by Aurors, they took up residence there and then attacked us, forcing us to retaliate so that they could take a picture, send it to the Prophet and justify the high expenses of the Ministry under the ‘ _For the War Effort_ ’ umbrella. There is no law that forbids magical communities to be formed as long as the Statue is upheld. Yet, as soon as me and Shasha talked of reform, we were suddenly called terrorists and we’ve had Aurors after us ever since’

She’s about to object but he stops her immediately.

‘I know what you’re going to say: I would have noticed if that many Aurors disappeared from the Ministry, dead in battle. Yet, you forget, Granger that wizarding Britain has often gone along with whatever muggles had in mind. Imperialism included. British wizards have set up colonies and abused their positions as much as muggles did, and they still hold that over the head of the governments of their once-colonies, holding on to whatever scrap of power they can manage. The village you’ve seen is just one of the many bases the Ministry has had for centuries in foreign countries, a small presence of Aurors to remind everyone of their power over them. The MACUSA, of course, copied the idea, and they have similar bases in a lot of countries too’

To say that the news is shocking is an understatement. Hermione had always thought that, unlike muggle history, wizarding history would not be shaped by propaganda, and she’d never questioned it, she’d believe it, and now she feels like a fool.

She takes a deep breath, trying to think about what to do, what to say. She’s always known the Ministry is unreliable, but this is a whole new level. Hermione doesn’t want to allow herself to understand him, to side with Draco and the Darkling, and yet…

’Tell me, what you would have told me that day, to convince me’ she says in the end, and Draco doesn’t look surprised. He looks as if he was waiting for her to ask.

He puts the teacup down on the tea table in front of them, and then he starts to unbutton his shirt, making her blush.

‘What are you…?’ she mutters, forcing herself to look away.

‘Do you remember that day?’ he asks forcing her eyes back to him, and she shivers when she sees it: the scars of the sectumsempra.

Hermione nods, her hands holding on to the saucer so hard she’s afraid she might crack the fine porcelain. The memory of Draco covered in blood, not moving, as Harry barely felt guilty for what he had done in her name…

Draco’s voice snaps her out of the memory, his shirt fully open now, exposing his toned chest, angry scars bisecting it.

‘That day, I would have asked you to follow me to an old classroom, perhaps to one of those passages hidden behind a tapestry, I would have shown you this’ he says tracing one of the biggest scars, the one that goes from his left shoulder down to his right hip, with his finger ‘and I would have asked you: at which point do corrupt and unjust institutions cease to be capable of being reformed? At which point can we declare them beyond saving? You would have objected, and I would have said that, sometimes, it is alright to burn it all down, if just to build it back up on more fair and just foundations’

‘There will always be people willing to corrupt the system’ she finds herself saying, her voice almost sad, incapable to look away from the scars on his chest.

‘Yes, that is true. The only difference is that now you get to have a say. For all their dismissal of you, Potter is well aware of your capabilities, that is why he and Weasley have tried so hard to break you softly, relegating you to a desk job with no meaning at all. Had they done anything less you would have climbed the Ministry like it was nothing. Your magic as powerful as your mind’

It’s impossible for Hermione not to bush, not to tremble slightly under his words. Has he always seen her like that? It must have been just a way to get under her skin, there was no way he really believed it. Or did he?

‘Can you feel it? What you are capable of? It’s not just books and research’ Draco says standing up. He walks around the coffee table until he can sit next to her on the sofa. He takes her hand in his and she allows him to as she studies his scars more closely. They’re still red, all angry and puckered skin, they would probably never turn silver, never fade, because of dark magic.

One moment she’s looking at his scars and the next Hermione feels magic move around her. She thinks he’s just showing off until he holds her hand a little bit tighter and she feels it, the power in her surging to meet Draco’s, coaxing a small moan from her lips as the feeling of magic, of power, overflows within her. When the details of the rooms come back into focus, she finds Draco looking at her with such an intense gaze it makes her shiver.

His power surges around them again, hers steadily rising to meet his, drawing another gasp from her as Draco’s gaze snaps to her lips. It makes her dizzy, the power. She can feel his around her, and Hermione is for the first time aware of the magic inside her like she has never been before. She wonders how he does it, how can he make her magic respond in such way.

‘Like calls to like, and power calls to power’ Draco says, inching closer and closer to her, and in a moment he’s over her, his body covering hers, warm and solid, and she shivers as his hand moves around her throat, the other on her waist.

‘At Hogwarts they teach nothing but the basics, and sometimes they fail even that. They don’t teach you how some individuals have more magic. You and I both have a lot, it’s normal for your magic to surge as I push mine outward, towards you’

He does it again, and Hermione feels her magic trying to reach his, every nerve in her body burning deliciously as she arches towards him, his magic caressing her skin like warm water, making her shiver. Draco never stops looking at her, moving his magic around her, over her, holding her underneath him until she embarrassingly comes without him even touching her. He’d just moved his magic until hers had pushed through every corner of her body so deliciously it made her orgasm. It’s amazing and embarrassing at the same time, and Hermione takes a moment to gather her thoughts and decide what to say, what to do.

‘I’m not sucking your cock’ she states trying to regain some dignity, trying to pretend she didn’t like it as much as she did.

Draco just smirks, pushing his body against hers, making her shiver again.

‘I’m not asking you to’

‘Did you come in your pants as you learned that?’ she asks, because this is just… unfair, no one told her the magic in her body could feel so good when let free.

‘No, I might have cheated to obtain this results’ he admits, gloating, and Hermione wants to be angry, but his silver eyes are fixed on hers, and they’re very distracting.

She bites her lips so not to ask him to teach her as she tries to reach back towards that well of power that she didn’t even knew was inside her. She can still perceive the edges of it, but it remains difficult to reach. It feels very much like when she first learned about magic, when it still refused to come when called only to then jump out in accidental bursts later.

‘It will take some time, but you’ll learn quickly’ he says, and she can feel him, hard against her thigh, his magic still in the air around them. ‘They used your love of rules to control you, to force you to suppress your magic voluntarily, what would you need if for if not to make tea as you pushed paperwork around?’ he says mockingly, the truth behind his words hitting Hermione hard and then immediately forgotten as his hand moved from her neck to her breast almost absentmindedly, as if he couldn’t stop himself.

‘You would have tried to fuck me’ she says trying to stay in control, trying to sound indignant, but her voice is breathless, almost needy ‘behind that tapestry, in that empty classroom’

The last time she had sex with someone it was with Ron, and it had been very unsatisfying, it had always been. Ron was a selfish lover, and it was one of the reasons that had pushed her to end their relationship. Draco is barely touching her and she’s on fire. It’s worrying, and dangerous, and far more pleasurable than anything she has ever experienced.

‘You would have let me, even if you were with Weasley’ he murmurs.

His breath is hot against her ear as he gently squeezes her breast, his thumb brushing over her nipple making her whimper, and she doesn’t know if she even wants to try and stop him. He made some points, but he’s still an enemy, so she should, she…

‘I would have sent you back to him as my cum still dripped down your legs. Just so you would realise what an ungrateful and unworthy piece of shit he was. He never deserved you’ there’s anger in his words, yet she can’t understand why.

He’s trying to seduce her, he has to be. He never looked at her like that, she thinks…. she remembers looking at him, from time to time, through the years, his hair mussed by the wind after Quidditch, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up during potions, the smirk he gave to Blaise or Theodore every time he won House points for Slytherin, how she sometimes longed to study with him in the library as she knew he would match her intellectually as no one could. Small desires she had neatly tucked away, pretended not to have in order not to be alone, not be called a traitor by Harry, Ron, and then the whole school.

The truth is out of her mouth before she can stop it, and she knows she’s doomed.

‘I wouldn’t have gone back to him if you’d fucked me’

She’d been… afraid, after her NEWTs, a part of her already knowing how her life at the Ministry would be, and for all she’d told herself since Draco was first announced as an enemy on the front page of the Prophet, she could have followed him if he’d spoken to her.

His silver eyes darken at her words, and it seems like he’s battling himself for a brief moment before his hand moves between her legs without even taking off her jeans, just rubbing against her clit until she comes, the orgasm milder than the previous one but not less pleasurable.

‘I will welcome your proposal for your reform of the Ministry. Convince me it doesn’t need to be burned to the ground’ he says as he slowly moves a hand in her hair, and then he’s off of her and walking out of the tent.

Hermione remains on he sofa, her limbs gradually going cold even though her face is still flushed. He barely touched her and she came twice, which was two more times than the last time she’d had sex with Ron.

‘Fuck, fuck’ she groans turning around and pushing her face into the cushion, muffling her frustrated scream.

* * *

‘I’ve made a mistake’ Alina and Hermione say at the same time as they meet in the semi deserted tent that is used as a mass for the Army.

Lunch hour is gone and dinner is still hours away, so they sit at a table tucked in a corner knowing they won’t be overheard.

Alina is already blushing, and Hermione is too. She’d understood that Hermione didn’t know the Black Dragon that well, but maybe she was wrong.

‘Do you feel it? The pull…’ Alina asks, and Hermione answers before she can finish.

‘Yes’ it’s all Hermione says, looking down at her hands.

It’s the most reassuring thing Alina has heard in months. Mal… Mal and his words made her feel weak, stupid, for falling for Darkling, as if it was all her fault, as if…

‘it’s normal’ Hermione says, as if trying to justify herself, ‘they’re not wrong, there’s much wrong with the wizarding world, their methods are just…’

‘Nikolai said the same’ at that Hermione makes a displeased face, and Alina cannot help herself but ask, ‘you don’t like him?’

‘I don’t really like anyone who claims power because of his so-called birthright to do so. Just because he has a softer hand than the Darkling and Draco, it doesn’t make him different’ she scoffs.

‘Nikolai is a good man’ he wasn’t Alina’s favourite person, but she likes him, so she’s compelled to defend him.

‘He’s royalty’

‘And that’s bad?’

‘I believe in democracy, every system that denies people participation is not one I can like’ Hermione declares and Alina cannot help but be skeptical.

‘The Minister of Magic is elected, and it’s not doing _that_ great’

‘That it’s a good system doesn’t mean that it cannot be distorted. Corruption spreads easily, and Britain is not a real democracy, muggles live in a constitutional monarchy that makes a mockery of the democratic process, and despite all their repulsion for it, wizarding Britain has incorporated much of its practices, good and bad’ she says, clearly a topic on which she had reflected a lot.

‘How do you change that?’ Alina asks her with a furrowed brow, and Hermione’s resolution falters.

‘I… it’s a lot of work’ she stammers.

‘What isn’t?’ Alina says with a sigh.

They remain silent for some time, until it’s Alina that speaks again, the words the Darkling had spoken to her that very morning hitting deeper than she’d expected. Mal did… seem to hate her sometimes, her magic. He’d been incessant in his questioning about how to get rid of it no matter how many times Alina told him it would kill her.

‘What if… they’re not completely wrong? What if we believe their claims that they will listen to us? Do you think they would?’

Hermione takes a long time to speak, and Alina both dreads and longs for her answer.

‘Maybe’ it’s all Hermione says, her jaw clenched.

‘What if… what if we try? What if it stops the war?’ she asks, her voice so low for a moment she doubts Hermione heard her.

‘We… could’ Hermione murmurs, and something forever shifts inside them.

**Author's Note:**

> @NyxFedra on Twitter.


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